A Canadian border town, Massena, has imposed a 90-day suspension on Bitcoin mining operations to make roads and buildings more presentable.
Massena, a municipality on the New York-Canadian border, has temporarily halted new Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations in the area.
Due to aesthetic concerns, Massena Town city officials imposed a three-month moratorium on new Bitcoin mining activity, according to a report by the Associated Press on Friday.
Miners swarmed the highways with trailers heavy with computers and other machinery required to mine Bitcoin, according to Steve O’Shaughnessy, a Massena Town supervisor. According to the AP article, O’Shaughnessy told WWNY-TV, “
“We don’t want it littered with these trailers that are pumping out Bitcoin. We just want to make sure if they are going to come here, that it’s a nice presentable building.”
The 90-day moratorium will apparently be used by city officials to clear roadsides in Massena Town of trailers and shipping containers that have been moved off-road.
Meanwhile, Massena Electric is looking to sign deals with three cryptocurrency companies. The electricity business, according to the AP News article, has its own prohibition on dealing with new crypto miners.
After a decade of factory job losses in small border communities across North America, Bitcoin and crypto mining businesses signal a return of some industrial activity to locations like Massena.
Cheap electricity is typically a big incentive for Bitcoin miners in these places, and in exchange, these businesses promise jobs and help to kickstart the local economy.
Indeed, with China’s massive crypto-mining crackdown and the projected East-to-West hash rate shift, these smaller North American communities may see an increase in Bitcoin mining activity.
Meanwhile, despite the current hash rate decline, the largest North American Bitcoin mining operations continue to expand their capacity in order to acquire a larger share of the market.
Controlling a larger share of the worldwide hash rate distribution by North American Bitcoin miners may also help the sector gain favor with regulators, particularly in the area of environmental protection.
